Prof. Wolfgang Baumeister, Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich and Honorary Professor at the TUM School of Natural Sciences, is being awarded the prestigious 2025 Shaw Prize in Life Sciences and Medicine. The award recognizes his pioneering development and use of cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), an imaging technique that enables three-dimensional visualization of biological samples. This revolutionary method allows proteins, macromolecular complexes, and cellular compartments to be viewed in their natural cellular settings. The Shaw Prize, endowed with US$1.2 million, will be presented in Hong Kong on October 21.
Human cells contain billions of proteins and other biological molecules that work together to keep cells, and thus organisms, alive. While scientists have long had detailed lists of individual cellular components and their isolated structures, they lacked an understanding of how these components interact in the cell. Baumeister's development of cryo-ET closes this gap, enabling the observation of biological processes in their original, densely packed cellular environment for the first time.
In cryo-ET, cells are flash-frozen to prevent ice crystal formation. The cells' structure remains in a glass-like state. A transmission electron microscope takes two-dimensional images from different angles, similar to computer tomography in medical diagnostics. Researchers can then use a computer to assemble these images into a three-dimensional model, revealing the cellular structure at the molecular level in its natural environment. Over the past few decades, Baumeister and his team have refined the method by combining many innovations.
The Shaw Prize now recognizes Baumeister's extraordinary contributions to structural biology. According to the Shaw Foundation's press release, “Baumeister has developed and applied methods to reveal the inner workings of cells at an unprecedented, near-atomic level. The power of this technology is transforming our understanding of normal life processes and how they go awry in disease."
About the awardee
Baumeister studied biology, chemistry, and physics at the universities of Münster and Bonn, receiving his doctorate in biophysics in 1973 from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in the lab of Helmut Ruska. His scientific career took him to positions as a research assistant at HHU (1973–1980) and as a Heisenberg Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge (1981–1982) before joining the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, where he worked from 1983 to 2021, first as group leader of Molecular Structural Biology and later as director. Since 1987, he is an extraordinary professor with teaching privileges at the Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich. Baumeister also holds an honorary professorship at the Department of Physics at the Technical University of Munich since 2000. And since 2023, he has been a distinguished adjunct professor at ShanghaiTech University in China. Baumeister is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the US National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Warburg Medal (1998), the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2003), the Harvey Prize for Science and Technology (2005), the Alexander Hollaender Award in Biophysics (2022) and the Rosenstiel Award in Basic Medical Sciences (2023)..
About the Shaw Prize
This year marks the 22nd time the Shaw Prize is being awarded. Alongside the Japan Prize, it is considered one of the most important scientific awards in Asia. Previus winners from the Max Planck Society include Simon D. M. White, who received the award in astronomy in 2017, and Reinhard Genzel in 2008. In mathematics, Gerd Faltings was honored in 2015; in the life sciences, F. Ulrich Hartl won the prize in 2012 and Patrick Cramer received it in 2023.
Glossary:
Cryo-electron microscopy: cryos in Greek: cold; biological samples (e.g. purified proteins or cells) are shock-frozen in liquid ethane to prevent the formation of water crystals, enabling preservation in close-to-native conditions. The samples can then be visualized at high resolution with the help of transmission electron microscopy.
Cryo-electron tomography: This imaging method allows 3D imaging of cryo-preserved specimens such as cells. Its high resolution allows determining protein structures within intact cellular environments.
More information and links
- Honorary Professors in NAT Chemistry
- Shaw Prize announcement
- Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Baumeister: Emeritus Group Molecular Structural Biology https://www.biochem.mpg.de/baumeister
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Original article: https://www.biochem.mpg.de/wolfgang-baumeister-receives-prestigious-shaw-prize